So system wars has been trying to make BioWare the new pariahs of the industry..

This is how it works in system wars:

If you are a great developer, who made lots and lots of really great games, you are never, ever allowed anything but great games. If you make something that only qualifies as pretty good, you are a sellout and a horrible developer, leading to the decline of gaming and human society as a whole. Any bit of good or bad PR you've ever done is instantly disected and criticized, while everyone simultaneously inflates the games flaws to ridiculous proportions, to make it seem like a nightmarish travesty, fit only as gutter wash in downtown crapville.

I see this pattern a lot though. Happens in games, movies, books, you name it.

People are far too entitled if you ask me. When they get something they love, they suddenly decide that everything done by the same people must always live up to that standard, and to not live up to that is a betrayal of a kind of trust or something.

I wasn't exactly thrilled by DA2, but I still had fun with it, and I am willing to forgive it as a mistep for the developer. If they keep making the same bad mistakes then I will probably stop playing their games, but I'd rather not jump to the conclusion that a developer I really like is now going to only make worse and worse games.

I don't understand why simply profit isn't enough.SuperFlakeman

[QUOTE="SuperFlakeman"]I don't understand why simply profit isn't enough.foxhound_fox

[QUOTE="foxhound_fox"]

[QUOTE="SuperFlakeman"]I don't understand why simply profit isn't enough.dreman999

I would not say it's greed. But Security. I f it was just greed it would be worse, like making you pay of things on disc, or charging $20 for four map packs.

dreman999

quoted from 0:34~ 0:44 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMcVZQI6ybw

:?

This is how it works in system wars:

If you are a great developer, who made lots and lots of really great games, you are never, ever allowed anything but great games. If you make something that only qualifies as pretty good, you are a sellout and a horrible developer, leading to the decline of gaming and human society as a whole. Any bit of good or bad PR you've ever done is instantly disected and criticized, while everyone simultaneously inflates the games flaws to ridiculous proportions, to make it seem like a nightmarish travesty, fit only as gutter wash in downtown crapville.

I see this pattern a lot though. Happens in games, movies, books, you name it.

People are far too entitled if you ask me. When they get something they love, they suddenly decide that everything done by the same people must always live up to that standard, and to not live up to that is a betrayal of a kind of trust or something.

I wasn't exactly thrilled by DA2, but I still had fun with it, and I am willing to forgive it as a mistep for the developer. If they keep making the same bad mistakes then I will probably stop playing their games, but I'd rather not jump to the conclusion that a developer I really like is now going to only make worse and worse games.

Vaasman

I also love how developers are supposed to be impervious to liking money. They are just there to make games forever for a bunch of ungrateful people that just sit on their asses all day complaining about textures and framerates..

[QUOTE="TheEroica"]

I've noticed a clear outpouring of hateboys on this forum going for BioWares throat, calling them washed up and under EA's spell and maybe the worst of all, comparing them to that bumbling mess known as Square Enix. Now I know that the opinions expressed in System Wars dont account for one percent of one percent of the opinions of the gaming comunity, but seriously guys? Bioware is still one of the elite and leading developers on earth and while yes, the vision of bioware has seemingly been impacted by the EA money factory, Bioware is still turning out highly rated and asthetically immersive games and will continue to.

.

.

The company has more on their plate then ever before with an MMO, sequals to highly touted games and multiplat development and yet they still turn out high quality work.

Im no appologist for anything in this business, I call it exactly how I see it... Bioware has nothing to appologize about.

Lucianu

Bioware is nothing close to elite. Maybe top 20. Maybe lower considering the mess that was DA2, a inferior hack 'n slash game compared to the original, that has less RPG elements than JRPGs.

But ofcouse, no one should predicting the death of Bioware, i mean they did manage to overcome the horrible nightmare that was Baldur's Gate: Alliance on the consoles, and managed to produce incredible games after that. So they might return to their senses.

Valve, Blizzard, Nintendo and Id software are Elite, God tier. Bioware is nothing compared to these Gods of gaming.

Valve >= Bioware > Blizzard > rest.
.
Saying Bioware in not a top developers is something I wouldn't exepct to see even here. Anyway, let's hope ME3 fix this insanity.

Anyway, let's hope ME3 fix this insanity.

padaporra

[QUOTE="dreman999"] I would not say it's greed. But Security. I f it was just greed it would be worse, like making you pay of things on disc, or charging $20 for four map packs.

foxhound_fox

Getting with the likes of EA or Activision is pretty much a necessity these days. Doing ok is not enough if they want to stay in business. People need to stop romantisizing the video game industry. Like it or not, it's big business with some high stakes activity going on. They are your friends, they are companies making PRODUCTS.

In short.........."I refuse to evolve......No matter what game is made better by new techology famble manble, I'll way hate it because it new."

dreman999

[QUOTE="dreman999"] In short.........."I refuse to evolve......No matter what game is made better by new techology famble manble, I'll way hate it because it new."

KalDurenik

[QUOTE="KalDurenik"]

[QUOTE="dreman999"] In short.........."I refuse to evolve......No matter what game is made better by new techology famble manble, I'll way hate it because it new."

heretrix

But when you are in an industry where to remain competitive at Bioware's level you have got to spend 10's of millions of dollars per game, remaining independent is super risky. One failure could completely destroy your company. You've seen this already.heretrix

Getting with the likes of EA or Activision is pretty much a necessity these days. Doing ok is not enough if they want to stay in business. People need to stop romantisizing the video game industry. Like it or not, it's big business with some high stakes activity going on. They are your friends, they are companies making PRODUCTS.heretrix

But when you are in an industry where to remain competitive at Bioware's level you have got to spend 10's of millions of dollars per game, remaining independent is super risky. One failure could completely destroy your company. You've seen this already.

heretrix

Everybody isn't supposed to win. With this ideology people get tired, stressed out and are just overall bored knowing they'll wake up tomorrow to work on map-packs.

You should construct your company in a way that ensures you won't go down. Just look at Nintendo. GC and N64 where profitable consoles for them, compare that to PS3. They have survived 25 years without the need of altering their philosophies and values.

In other words, they've improved/changed their core franchises in ways that streamlines them, but in a way that their core fanbase appreciates while trying to expand to casuals. You can't argue against this.

They're never going to produce photo realistic graphics knowing there's a huge demand for that. Why are they doing Kid Icarus: Uprising when we all know that it's a 500k title at best? It's simple, they like it.

Why haven't they expanded their online knowing it's successful for other companies? Easy, they don't like it.

ID :lol:John_Read

It's 'Id', not 'ID'.

• Created the FPS genre and evolved it with many popular ground breaking engines..
• Brought traditional 2D platforming, that was thought to be impossible, to the PC..

Seriously, how often was anyone casting "Increase Luck" in Baldur's Gate :P Keep the good, cut the fat.locopatho

Sure, cut the RPG elements all together, and bring forth casual trash with 0 complexity and no depth.

Right. Sometimes you just want ot cash in your chips. If you made a successful business and decide to do that, it's your right, people be damned. Most you you guys don't appeciate it anyway so why the hell should they care? They've put in their hours.

heretrix

Bioware's dedicated fanbase appreciated and praised them for their PC RPGs.

Bottom line is, they had a choice, and they chose money over their fanbase and now are making casual hack 'n slash/shooters with minuscule RPG elements, cliche stories, and mediocre characters knowing they will make a sale thanks to their name.

Wen they could simply make something more RPG centric than focus on some damn romantism trash. And please the dedicated fanbase.

I've noticed a clear outpouring of hateboys on this forum going for BioWares throat, calling them washed up and under EA's spell and maybe the worst of all, comparing them to that bumbling mess known as Square Enix. Now I know that the opinions expressed in System Wars dont account for one percent of one percent of the opinions of the gaming comunity, but seriously guys? Bioware is still one of the elite and leading developers on earth and while yes, the vision of bioware has seemingly been impacted by the EA money factory, Bioware is still turning out highly rated and asthetically immersive games and will continue to.

.

.

The company has more on their plate then ever before with an MMO, sequals to highly touted games and multiplat development and yet they still turn out high quality work.

Im no appologist for anything in this business, I call it exactly how I see it... Bioware has nothing to appologize about.

TheEroica

[QUOTE="locopatho"]Seriously, how often was anyone casting "Increase Luck" in Baldur's Gate :P Keep the good, cut the fat.Lucianu

Sure, cut the RPG elements all together, and bring forth casual trash with 0 complexity and no depth.

Sure, intentionally miss the point all together... More complex is not automatically better. If there's useless stuff then cut it, no need to worry about it. They are awesomely talented devs, they know what they are doing. They aren't perfect, I miss planet exploration in ME2, but they are doing an amazing job nonetheless.

Sure, intentionally miss the point all together... More complex is not automatically better. If there's useless stuff then cut it, no need to worry about it. They are awesomely talented devs, they know what they are doing. They aren't perfect, I miss planet exploration in ME2, but they are doing an amazing job nonetheless.

locopatho

But doesn't complexity, more often then not, equal a more thought provoking experience? Some people might prefer that over casualization, some prefer having many choices, which leads to a more open - ended experience. Which is what a RPG should be..

[QUOTE="locopatho"]

Sure, intentionally miss the point all together... More complex is not automatically better. If there's useless stuff then cut it, no need to worry about it. They are awesomely talented devs, they know what they are doing. They aren't perfect, I miss planet exploration in ME2, but they are doing an amazing job nonetheless.

Lucianu

But doesn't complexity, more often then not, equal a more thought provoking experience? Some people might prefer that over casualization, some prefer having many choices, which leads to a more open - ended experience. Which is what a RPG should be..

[QUOTE="John_Read"]ID :lol:Lucianu

It's 'Id', not 'ID'.

• Created the FPS genre and evolved it with many popular ground breaking engines..
• Brought traditional 2D platforming, that was thought to be impossible, to the PC..

Anyway @the tc, Bio is pretty amazingly inconsistent, I wouldn't call DA2 'high quality work', and I'd be willing to put money on their mmo flopping pretty badly. Bioware's not the 'elite', they're a fluke, sometimes good, sometimes horrible.

It's 'Id', not 'ID'.

• Created the FPS genre and evolved it with many popular ground breaking engines..
• Brought traditional 2D platforming, that was thought to be impossible, to the PC..

Lucianu

[QUOTE="locopatho"]

Sure, intentionally miss the point all together... More complex is not automatically better. If there's useless stuff then cut it, no need to worry about it. They are awesomely talented devs, they know what they are doing. They aren't perfect, I miss planet exploration in ME2, but they are doing an amazing job nonetheless.

Lucianu

But doesn't complexity, more often then not, equal a more thought provoking experience? Some people might prefer that over casualization, some prefer having many choices, which leads to a more open - ended experience. Which is what a RPG should be..

id..

It can be good of course, but compare something like healing in BG vs DA. Is it fun to cast cure light ones several times in a row after a tough fight, rest to refresh spells, cast cure light wounds again, rest again, etc until healed? Or better to just autoheal after an encounter? To me that's an example of good streamlining. Then of course you can still cast heal during a fight, so all that's happened is less time wasted, more time spent doing fun things.locopatho

I don't think anyone would have a problem with a small bit of streamlining concerning a few tid bits that were badly implemented, or just annoying. I liked Dragon Age: Origins, it's definitely not a spiritual succesor to BG, but i really did like that game. Casualization is such a vague term, i was thinking about the back bones of a core RPG, and removing those.

It's not cool, because core RPGs are becoming a obscure genre, wile third person action with small RPG elements, or open world adventure games with small RPG elements are becoming the clasification for new gen. gamers of what a RPG is. That's not evolution.. that's the death of PC focused RPGs, though i'm probably over-dramatic, there have ben barely any examples to deny this.

Valve >= Bioware > Blizzard > rest.
.
Saying Bioware in not a top developers is something I wouldn't exepct to see even here. Anyway, let's hope ME3 fix this insanity.

padaporra

Remember, Bioware got to the top by killing the RPG genre.

id..

[QUOTE="locopatho"]It can be good of course, but compare something like healing in BG vs DA. Is it fun to cast cure light ones several times in a row after a tough fight, rest to refresh spells, cast cure light wounds again, rest again, etc until healed? Or better to just autoheal after an encounter? To me that's an example of good streamlining. Then of course you can still cast heal during a fight, so all that's happened is less time wasted, more time spent doing fun things.Lucianu

I don't think anyone would have a problem with a small bit of streamlining concerning a few tid bits that were badly implemented, or just annoying. I liked Dragon Age: Origins, it's definitely not a spiritual succesor to BG, but i really did like that game. Casualization is such a vague term, i was thinking about the back bones of a core RPG, and removing those.

It's not cool, because core RPGs are becoming a obscure genre, wile third person action with small RPG elements, or open world adventure games with small RPG elements are becoming the clasification for new gen. gamers of what a RPG is. That's not evolution.. that's the death of PC focused RPGs, though i'm probably over-dramatic, there have ben barely any examples to deny this.

DA2 "pretty good"... Dont make me laugh. its average at best and coming from a game where they want to sell 10milion copies and that its a AAA title. Well Yeah its a horrible failure. Not only that they make bad to average DLC and its overpriced. No i dont think we will see any more quality games from Bioware. Quick fast money grabs until people get bored. KalDurenik

I'm just bring up a point. I'm not say that it bad to hate the biowares games just his refuse to even allow him self to like them. He hates on Kotor for it's battle system but prazes BG which Kotor gets most of it battle system from BG. He complain about the bug in Kotor, but forgets the talking glich in BG2 that nearly broke the game... Not being able to finishquest because the game tells you the character you need to talk to won't because helook busy is a bad thing.

dreman999

It really doesnt matter if they use the same system or not, I like well made action rpgs, well made turn based rpgs and well made pseudo turnbased rpgs. The differene between KotoR and Baldur's Gate was that Baldur's Gate's battle system was very well made. KotoR's was merely ok. As for me complaining about the glitch, it was because it happened to me after every single fight. Meanwhile, I never encountered the talking glitch in Baldur's Gate 2. With that said, I somewhat enjoyed KotoR 2, I havent played the restored content mod however and if I do, I will probably like it even more.

I loved the first few hours of Dragon Age Origins, but the more I played, the more obvious were the flaws. What I had hoped with Dragon Age 2 was that it would be like Dragon Age: Origins, but with the flaws removed. Appearantly from what I heard that was not the case.

I like evolution, as long as it is benefitial, if it is the opposite I dislike it.

Edit: It wasnt until actually Mass Effect 2 till I decided that I did not like Bioware, I liked them before that. I can tell you I was really hyped up for TOR around the time when it was announced. I want to love the next Bioware game, but with the way the company is going. I dont think that is happening.

I have a friend who worked with S2 Games for a while (he built both Savage 2 and HoN from the ground up) and is now working on XBLA. He made those games because he loves to program and play games. The fact he gets paid to do it is just an afterthought for him. Granted, he needs an income in order to survive... but he LOVES what he does for a living. Very few people can say they love doing what they do as much as he can.

foxhound_fox

I fully understand the difference between a small dev house that are in it because they love making games and the larger big business publishers. Sometimes it just so happens that a smaller dev house begins to expand to a point where the owners simply will not risk their own money on the expansion. They then look to a larger company that is willing to take the financial risk.

It seems like a lot of people here are forgetting what happened to developers like Factor 5 after a AAA game fails. Bioware does have a dedicated following but if their MMO fails to catch on sales from Mass Effect 3 probably would not be enough to keep them afloat. And even if they turn out to be a resounding success, in this economy, it just isn't a good idea to have all of your money tied up in "Would could be" or the fickle affections of the public.

Wen they could simply make something more RPG centric than focus on some damn romantism trash. And please the dedicated fanbase.

Lucianu

That's nice and all but your friend isn't making AAA games with large budgets. Right now Bioware is making one of the most expensive MMORPGs ever and then they have Mass Effect 3 coming out and if I'm not mistaken a new IP in the works. Do you really think that an independent company with just their dedicated fanbase is going to support all of that?heretrix

[QUOTE="Lucianu"]

Wen they could simply make something more RPG centric than focus on some damn romantism trash. And please the dedicated fanbase.

heretrix

No it comes from the co-writer for DA2 a obese woman who apperently is still a virgin. Don't mistake that for the dedicated fanbase.Locutus_Picard

DAAMN! That was ruthless, man.

Could be sadly true..

To be frank, I really don't get this idea that they're not a better company ever since they joined EA. People talk about their games being simplified ever since they joined, but I have been seeing this happening since the creation of kotor.

I don't mind though, I still enjoy their games, perhaps not in the same level as some of the people here, but I definitely enjoy them. That said, I see nothing wrong with people voicing out their disappointment in recent titles, if they were, you know, disappointed.

Bioware are the only ones who can give singleplayer wRPGs the production values, presentation and polish they deserve, and in that regard they're most certainly "elite".

Sadly their next two projects are an action adventure and a mmo, and even though I'm excited for them there are games that could take their place, while I doubt we'll see anything like Kotor or DAO ever again.

[QUOTE="heretrix"]

[QUOTE="Lucianu"]

Wen they could simply make something more RPG centric than focus on some damn romantism trash. And please the dedicated fanbase.

Locutus_Picard

Because you can't do that anymore, Fox. Things are just too complex and expensive to rely on a small, hardcore audience. Sure, you'll get a success now and then like Angry Birds or Mine craft, but people will inevitably seek out leagues better and then they'll return to Uncharted or Halo and Mario.

AncientDozer

[QUOTE="Locutus_Picard"][QUOTE="heretrix"]The romantism trash comes from their dedcated fanbase :lol:

locopatho

[QUOTE="locopatho"][QUOTE="Locutus_Picard"] No it comes from the co-writer for DA2 a obese woman who apperently is still a virgin. Don't mistake that for the dedicated fanbase.Locutus_Picard

[QUOTE="Locutus_Picard"]

[QUOTE="locopatho"] They've had romance stuff since BG2 tho, it's nothing new. Remember Nalia and Anomen, ugh. Jaheira was kewl tho :Dlocopatho

I wouldn't call up-against-the-wall romance tho...it's basically fanservice for basement dwellers.

Locutus_Picard

It's funny that they don't even implement the consequence of having sex. They should let one of the female escor- ahem I mean characters come up to you and say ''I'm pregnant'' and have that choice-selection wheel thingy...now THAT would be some good writing.Locutus_Picard

[QUOTE="locopatho"][QUOTE="Locutus_Picard"] I wouldn't call up-against-the-wall romance tho...it's basically fanservice for basement dwellers.

Locutus_Picard

[QUOTE="TheEroica"]

I've noticed a clear outpouring of hateboys on this forum going for BioWares throat, calling them washed up and under EA's spell and maybe the worst of all, comparing them to that bumbling mess known as Square Enix. Now I know that the opinions expressed in System Wars dont account for one percent of one percent of the opinions of the gaming comunity, but seriously guys? Bioware is still one of the elite and leading developers on earth and while yes, the vision of bioware has seemingly been impacted by the EA money factory, Bioware is still turning out highly rated and asthetically immersive games and will continue to.

.

.

The company has more on their plate then ever before with an MMO, sequals to highly touted games and multiplat development and yet they still turn out high quality work.

Im no appologist for anything in this business, I call it exactly how I see it... Bioware has nothing to appologize about.

Lucianu

Bioware is nothing close to elite. Maybe top 20. Maybe lower considering the mess that was DA2, a inferior hack 'n slash game compared to the original, that has less RPG elements than JRPGs.

But ofcouse, no one should predicting the death of Bioware, i mean they did manage to overcome the horrible nightmare that was Baldur's Gate: Alliance on the consoles, and managed to produce incredible games after that. So they might return to their senses.

Valve, Blizzard, Nintendo and Id software are Elite, God tier. Bioware is nothing compared to these Gods of gaming.